App-level MAM features for Office Mobile apps are somewhat of a protective moat for Intune, and until this week, none of these apps supported open MDM standards for app configuration. (I wrote a PSA about how ISVs should support these standards.) However, on Tuesday, it was announced that Outlook for iOS and Android will support MDM configuration standards, allowing MDM servers to provision account settings for on-premises Exchange servers. Note that this announcement came from the Exchange blog, not the Intune blog. I suspect that it was the Exchange team that was pushing for these capabilities, and I’m not expecting many more of open configurations to crop up in other Office Mobile apps. But either way, these are a welcome feature.

On Monday, news dropped that Dell is considering going public via a reverse-merger with VMware. This is largely a business structure issue in response to tax changes, though El Reg argues that a closer relationship could hurt partner and customer goodwill. Either way, from the EUC side, we’ve been watching products get closer for two years already, so there likely won’t me much of a change for us. We’ll be watching this, but that’s probably all there is to say for now.

Microsoft granted a six-month extension to enterprise support for Windows 10 versions 1607, 1703, and 1709, for a total of 24 months of support for each. (Via Mary Jo Foley.) This follows the extension for 1511 from last year. The question is whether enterprises will get better at Windows as a Service, or if 24 months should be the standard (instead of the current 18 months of enterprise support). The announcement also included information on Office ProPlus and Office 2019 support plans.

In a blog post, Google wrote about its efforts to fight malware in Google Play in 2017. They’ve gotten faster at removing bad apps, and the chance of installing a potentially harmful app is down by 50%. The post has a lot of figures, but we’ll get a much fuller picture when they release the 2017 Android Security Year in Review. In the meantime, remember that the rate of actual incidents is much lower than FUD-y headlines would have you believe, and getting malware onto many Android phones is actually kind of difficult.

Last weekend, Microsoft pushed an update to disable Intel’s patch for the Spectre variant 2 bug. In the meantime, performance monitoring companies are continuing to look at the impact. This week Login VSI shared data on Windows 10 and Windows 7. There are a lot of different scenarios to test as different patches and optimizations come and go. As has been said many times already, your mileage may vary, and buckle in and get ready for a long haul.

Many vendors posted their 2017 earnings this week, but one I’ll highlight here is Citrix. After a tumultuous year, revenue is up 3% to $2.82 billion; subscription revenue accounted for 12% of the total.

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